


Mary, Mary, quite contrary

by WindyRein



Series: How does your garden grow? [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abuse of italics, Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gammas, Life Before the Fire, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mates for life, Mention of Cannibalism, Mentions of multiple minor character deaths, No dialogue in the traditional sense, Something like reincarnation, There is a difference between alpha and Alpha, mention of miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindyRein/pseuds/WindyRein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Derek thinks about them. Sometimes he thinks about those lost before the fire, wonders if they were better off somehow. Sometimes, when he feels particularly hopeful and filled with positive possibilities, he even thinks he remembers hearing his mother telling his father about an itch at the back of her mind and Derek thinks about his Aunt Mary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mary, Mary, quite contrary

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is from [ the nursery rhyme](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176336) :D
> 
> I've been sitting on this for months now because, ohmygod, OFC!!1! and the last time I posted something with one it was awful and Mary Sue and pretty much destroyed my confidence in ever making believable female characters that don't want to make me throw myself off a cliff just to stop the shame. But then I went fuck it, I'm proud of it. So, yeah...  
> And wouldn't you look at it, I found a way around my issues with dialogue xD
> 
> Might become a series of snapshots of before and after, if I ever manage to get Stiles talking to me (his POV is killing me!!). Also, FYI, the alpha pack's not as big of a deal in this 'verse as they seem to be in canon.
> 
> What else... Once again, I haven't ever seen an episode of Teen Wolf (I really need to get on that) and all my knowledge comes from fic and fandom and random googling.
> 
> Oh, tell me if I missed a warning, tag, character, whatever in your opinion :) (i've no idea how to tag this shit -.-')

Sometimes Derek thinks about them. Sometimes when he’s nostalgic and loving he even murmurs to Stiles about them, tells little things like the way his mother’s laugh would ring throughout the house like a song or how his father was the calm in the middle of the chaos, always smiling like he knew the secret to the Universe.

Sometimes he thinks about those lost before the fire, wonders if they were better off somehow. He thinks about a cub never born and the broken cries that’d echoed in the halls and through walls of the house for days and days and months after. He thinks about closed off eyes, shock dousing every other emotion or feeling and how a name became taboo. He barely remembers a raging wolf with only madness in its eyes.

Sometimes _(so very, very rarely)_ he even thinks about those who left peacefully with smiles on their lips and relief in their hearts, like Grandma’s mother. He thinks about those who slept away when it was exactly their time and not a moment too soon or too late and he compares pain.

Sometimes, when he feels particularly hopeful and filled with positive possibilities, he even thinks he remembers hearing his mother telling his father about an itch at the back of her mind, something that almost felt like her father when he’d gone feral after her mother died and how they never talked about it if Peter was anywhere in the house; how even then, they talked with low murmurs that were almost whispers. And Derek thinks about his Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary who’d gone missing six months _(give or take)_ before the fire, missing-presumed-dead _(the detective who’d called them said no-one could lose that much blood and live, Derek knew different)_ and they held a little service in the Preserve and for the first weeks Peter wasn’t left alone for a moment and after they kept a close eye on him. Everyone remembered what’d happened to Grandpa.

After indulging that hope for a few moments, Derek crushes it and returns to reality where his pack needs him and he thinks Peter could be so much worse and none of his other packmates realize it. It’s then Derek starts teaching them how to deal with a feral wolf.

Peter doesn’t say a word about it.

***

It isn’t until Stiles’ scent changes that Derek thinks about her again. Stiles starts smelling like ozone and dried blood and smoke and like freshly baked bread. Derek might think he remembers hearing something or have fuzzy images of visiting packs but he knows scents. He _remembers_ them.

Now he remembers how his Aunt Mary always smelled like ash and ozone, dried blood and the forest after a storm. He remembers how the ozone sparked with lightning, how ash became crackling burning fire but most of all he remembers how the dream of a memory that the dried blood was usually became a flood whenever an even slightly hostile pack entered their territory.

He remembers hearing about a pack war bloodier than any other before or after and remembers seeing how alphas flinched and betas cowered and cubs whispered about Bloody Mary. He remembers what Laura told him after the fire, how their Aunt Mary who always had a warm smile and a soft hug, a listening ear and freshly baked cookies whenever Derek _(or any of the other cubs)_ came home angry at the world and the stupid humans who were so ignorant they couldn’t find their noses in the dark if they tried, was something else, something different. How Aunt Mary was to ‘wolves what ‘wolves were to humans and neither of them really understood. Laura had only started her Alpha training when they all died and Derek had never paid much attention to legend _(that was Peter’s corner)_ , preferring doing things to learning them.

But now he remembers all this and thinks.

He thinks about how his beloved Aunt Mary might not have been just the freelance writer he always thought she was. He thinks about the research and business trips she took and how there was a bounce in her steps and a sharpening in her ozone whenever she came back.

He thinks and he remembers and he wonders. Sometimes he almost asks Peter but he can never bring himself to do it.

***

There’s a wolf in the woods. _California doesn’t have wolves anymore,_ Stiles says. Derek knows that and waits. _Well, not the normal kind at least,_ Stiles amends after a moment. It’s this that worries Derek.

There’s a wolf in the woods and no matter what they try they can’t seem to find it. They can smell it and track it and find its kills but never the wolf. The pups _(and that’s what Derek will call them for a long time to come if they don’t start learning)_ are frustrated, Peter seems bemused and Derek worries.

There’s a wolf in the woods and word of it somehow gets to Chris Argent. He wants to meet with Derek to find out what they’re dealing with. If they should kill it, warn it off or just let it pass through.

There’s a wolf in the woods and the first they see of it is when it lunges at Argent with burning eyes and unnaturally long teeth. Derek’s too stunned to react, so it’s Peter who crashes into the wolf and pins it to the ground.

***

There’s a moment’s scuffle and then Peter has his teeth on the wolf’s throat with a growl rumbling low in his chest. Chris looks ready to go for his gun and just shoot the animal but the pack _(and how Derek’s proud of them)_ can hear the soothing comforting undertone and their calm seems to still Argent’s hand.

The wolf goes limp in Peter’s jaws and whines. When Peter lets it go, it shakes its head and whines again, tries to get on its feet, crumples to the ground and whines pathetically. Peter smells stunned and scared and surprised and disbelieving but he picks the wolf up and starts walking towards Derek, and it isn’t until Derek sees one blue and one green eye looking at him that he understands.

“Well, fuck my life.”

The pups and Stiles as well as Argent turn to him as Peter enters the house still rumbling lowly. All of them look surprised. It’s anyone’s guess, if it’s because of him or Peter.

***

The wolf shivers and whines and shudders and huffs, in what Derek thinks is frustration, and growls at anyone who isn’t Peter or Derek.

The pack bitch and whine and moan about it but neither Hale explains anything, not until Stiles and _I know Peter’s mate disappeared, I know a body hasn’t turned up yet and I know you two are scary protective of that wolf_ and Derek takes in a shuddering breath and explains some of it, not all of it, he doesn’t remember all of it. He says _Peter should’ve gone feral with it. The loss. He shouldn’t have been able to come up with that resurrection plan, should’ve been out of his mind_ and Stiles looks stricken and murmurs _if I’d have known..._

***

The wolf stays a wolf for a week until the whole pack, sleeping at the Hale house after a movie night, is woken by a scream that seems to screech its nails through their bone marrow. The scream is followed by sobbing and a mumbled string of words that Scott later translates for Stiles as _gonegonegonethey’reallgonealldead_. The pack had gathered at the door to Peter’s room and Stiles had immediately recognized the possibility of a panic attack. He shooed the rest away (upsides to being the Alpha mate) and returned to the doorway. She was looking at Derek with a look Stiles might have called calculating if the panic hadn’t been lurking at the edges of her mind. After a stretched out moment of silence she lowers her eyes and bares her neck.

Derek rumbles in satisfaction and takes her throat in his teeth and Stiles swears he can feel something slipping or snapping to place.

When Derek lets go, she raises her eyes to Stiles and tilts her head to the side.

***

 _We are whatever they need us to be,_ she says a week after she looks at Stiles for the first time and calls him cub. _We are, we will always be and they will hurt us and love us and shun us and never understand that ache in their chest, not until they are like us in some way,_ she tells him when he asks if it ever stops.

 _If you are good and desperate and cunning and old, you will find a way to stop waking,_ she explains with their feet in cold water that reflects life and the voices of those before in their ears _(she stopped waking after the second time)_.

 _If you do it wrong, you’ll never wake again,_ she says in a blood-soaked clearing with their pack around them and freshly-spilled alpha blood on her lips and his hands. He looks up at her cold eyes and past her to Derek’s brighter burning eyes and says, _I know_ , draws the last symbol and eats the still beating Alpha heart.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering, Mary's a gamma. Gammas are magical. No, they're not as fast or strong as betas, actually I'd put them slightly above an average human in strength.
> 
> Drop a review and tell me what I did wrong and/or right :)


End file.
